The Hit List Read Online Free Page A

by 2pm, after an unpleasant meal consumed at a service | Station outside Henley-on-Thames, had begun to recce I the roads around Bolingbroke's School.
    The cousins waited in the car, smoking, until it was JfNfully dark. Then they embraced, whispered a prayer, |took a weapon each, and climbed out into the icy cold |bf the lay-by. Their point of entry to the school, flselected two hours earlier, was close to the rugby pitch |where the 1st XV practice game had taken place arlier.
    Within minutes both men were crouched outside ic seven-foot perimeter wall. A leg up, a grunt of effort, a helping hand and they were both over, falling ith a soft crunch into the frosted bracken, purposefully they made their way towards the school lildings, by now a blaze of light. Their afternoon's connaissance had told them they had little to fear am the security guards and they moved fluently from adow to shadow, eventually vanishing from sight long the ground-scraping branches of an elderly yew ee. A gravelled path led past this tree - a path joining lie main school building to the modern refectory lock. The two men settled down to wait.
    For twenty-five minutes the darkness reshaped itself aund them. Boys passed by, but always in twos or rees. Finally a solitary figure appeared, a slender fair ired youth of about fourteen carrying a Game Boy.
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    Apparently heedless of the cold, the teenager paused beneath one of the lighted refectory windows, his fingers stabbing at the little console. The two men's eyes met. Soundlessly they climbed to their feet.
    It was skilfully accomplished. Within seconds the boy had been bundled into the blackness beneath the yew. One man held him, clamping a strong hand across his mouth, the other urgently motioned silence. Eyes wide with terror, the boy nodded. To reinforce the need for silence one of the bearded figures produced the Smith and Wesson. In response the boy wet himself and began to shake.
    'Listen, my friend,' whispered the second man. 'We are not going to hurt you - we just wish to talk. Now, what is your name?'
    'C-Christopher,' the boy managed.
    'OK, Christopher, when I give the word we are going to walk down the hill towards the games fields. Like I said, we will not hurt you but you must keep silent. Do you understand?'
    The boy nodded, still shaking.
    'Good boy. Let's go.'
    The two men led the boy back in the direction they had come. Soon they were below the perimeter fence again. Getting him over was not easy. An icy frost now coated the stone, and terror seemed to have robbed the boy of all co-ordination. Eventually, however, they managed to bundle him up and over.
    'Are you hurt, Christopher?' hissed one of the men as they landed to either side of him.
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    The boy shook his head.
    'Just walk then,' said the man. 'Like normal, OK?'
    . the Cherokee they turned on the ignition and the ater. The man with the Smith and Wesson pocketed ; weapon and took out a small mobile phone. i'OK, Christopher. I want you to ask to speak to soud al-Jubrin. I'm going to dial the number of his e, and I want you to arrange to meet him in the ic place that we . . . that we met you.' 'But I don't know Masoud. At least, I know who he Ibut--'
    'It doesn't matter. Just say you have something of at importance for him. Something you have to give i in person.'
    ; you going to hurt him?' f 'No. We just have to speak to him. To give him a essage. That is all.'
    The boy frowned doubtfully at the windscreen. At side, the black-clothed figure punched out a lorised number and handed him the little
    Ibtorola.
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    ?A murmured conversation ensued. A more Imfident tone was returning to the boy's voice,
    ecially now that the revolver was out of sight. 'Masoud's in the sick bay,' he said eventually,
    leering the phone. 'He's got a flu bug or something.' AThe men looked at each other. ' 'I'd like you to take us there, Christopher,' said one.
    le Delves house prefects were watching a 23
    The Hit List
    documentary